Silent Hill Extreme
Chapter 11: The Bat
One would think that the mist would hide them from the oncoming beast, but considering the type of beast they were confronting, it is understandable.
A Bat usually moved by echolocation as they were blind, so that the beast could find them every time it screeched is reasonable.
It didn't mean that Karin was happy with it…
"This is bullshit!" She curses under her breath as she reloaded her guns "I can't even see where in the hell it is… Wait a minute… I'm in hell!"
"Karin calm down" Cheryl mutters for her to hear "We wait and when the moment comes we strike"
Both were hiding in the control room of the rollercoaster waiting for Ichigo to bring the beast to them. It was decided as a course of action after the bat-like beast pounced on them from within the mist.
While they barely managed to escape, it was not unscathed. Ichigo's gash on the shoulder could attest to it. About Ichigo and the plan, as he was the close combat specialist of the group, he decided to lure the bat toward them. They would blow new holes, several new beautiful holes into its body.
The plan was simple, lure it close then turn it into a strainer.
Simple right?
-SHE-
Simple my ass…
That was where Ichigo's thought ran toward as he parried another slash of the bat creature with his katana. The creature was not only strong but very agile, dodging every slash Ichigo made in its direction.
It wasn't a fight to his favour.
It took some time for him to find a good place to confront the beast as the risk of falling is too high and the creature was smart enough to realise that a fight up there was more advantageous.
Ichigo stared at the bat as it hovered in front of him. It apparently decided that staring at him was more important than destroying him. Curiously enough this one could be as calm and unresponsive as the original one, which was terrifying.
The memory of his fight with Ulquiorra was still burned in his mind. It was one of the times he felt hopeless. Ulquiorra was a monster and only his curious nature stopped from killing him in the first move. He remembered as the Arrancar dodged and parried his best attack. The moment where he was 'killed' by him was blurry but the emotions he felt right then was as clear as water.
The cries of Orihime were floating in his mind. The desperation she felt was felt by him that day.
That was when his darkness consumed him completely.
Ichigo only managed to best the bat Arrancar when his Hollow went out of control.
That's when he realized something. He would do no good in this fight at all. Those memories were the ones that impeded him from fighting freely against this creature. He could not help but relate the fear he felt while fighting Ulquiorra to this creature.
The memory of Ulquiorra was staring right at him.
"Pitiful, for someone who caught the interest of Aizen-Sama you're pathetic"
Ichigo's eyes widened at hearing that voice. He tensed and started parrying again the claws of the bat.
"Even if you rise up a thousand times, there will be no victory for any of you."
Ichigo gritted his teeth at that and his guard was left wide open "Damn! I'm not gonna let you beat me!"
"Your words are those of a man who knows not true despair. If you know it not, then allow me to teach you. This is the face of true despair."
Before he could react, the Bat's clawed hand lunged toward his face and gripped it, tightly. Ichigo screamed in pain as the nightmare monster squeezed his head.
"You are a fool, Ichigo Kurosaki. You willingly seek to challenge an opponent so much more powerful than you that it strikes a primal fear into your being. Incomprehensible."
The creature did not make a facial move through the whole ordeal. It rose to the sky, hand tightly holding Ichigo's face. Without further ado, it threw Ichigo against a nearby building.
Ichigo knew no more than that.
Everything went black for him…
-SHE-
"The time is coming closer" Norman mutters as he walks through the hallway. Of course everything was going as planned. Everything he strived for was close to him "Better get the Medium"
It was then that he stopped in front of a door. Slowly he opened it and went inside. There sat in the bed the one person he's been searching all along, Yuzu Kurosaki, a girl who knew nothing of the potential she possessed.
She turned to look at him and her eyes hardened "What do you want?" She asks as calm as she can be, considering the slight wavering in her voice.
"And I thought you were a nice girl" The man smirks at her "I can't say that things are going wrong, so you will be getting out of here"
Yuzu's eyes widen at that "You mean I can go with my brother?"
Mirth danced in the man's eyes "I'm afraid you can't, just yet. First we'll be going to the church" The man says as he ties her hands behind her "Mass is in three hours after all"
"The mass?" Yuzu wonders, not really looking forward to the answer.
"Ah, that's right. You're not from this side of the world" Norman says as he pushes her to walk out of the room "You see a mass is when several people reunite in an event of religious kind, most of times to pray to god… though we'll be praying for a different one…"
"What do you mean?"
The man looks at her and made her regret asking "Why only to reach paradise" He says with a twisted grin.
It was dark, darker than she ever felt in her life…
She prayed to someone to help her…
-SHE-
"He's taking too long" Cheryl mutters as she stands up from where she was crouched. She looks at Karin and says without thinking "He must have been killed"
Karin turns to look at her sharply, making her wince at the meaning of her words "Shut up! Ichigo is not dead! If someone can survive out here, it's him!"
"Faith means nothing here" Cheryl says sceptically "When you believe in someone… They simply disappear" She finishes grimly.
Karin shook his head in plain negation "Ichigo is out there I'm sure. If he's taking this long then he must be in trouble!" She says as she walks out of the control room.
"Wait! Where are you going!?" She hisses at her "This thing will find you and kill you"
"I'm going for him" She says as if it was obvious "He needs me, I can feel it"
Cheryl looks at her bewildered "Why would you risk yourself like that?!" It was alien to her what she was seeing. Years of living inside this nightmare numbed her to the human's compassion and empathy. Considering where she's been for the last years who can fault her?
"Because he's my brother" Karin's lips thinned into a small smile "I would do anything for my family… just like he would do it for me" With that she ran in the general direction Ichigo went leaving a pensive Cheryl behind.
'Family… It's been so long… Father…' Her eyes tear up a bit at that 'I'm so sorry…'
-SHE-
Ichigo blearily opened his eyes and immediately his senses were bombarded by the striking pain caused by the Bat. Everything at first was a blur to him until he remembered what transpired recently.
He froze up and let his guard down because of a damn memory. Because of his past.
He was afraid somehow.
Ichigo looked above him to see the Bat hovering lazily looking straight at him. It's like he was having fun, even if the deformed bat face said the contrary.
Panic surged within him and before he even thought of moving the pain strike him twofold. He could not move and he could barely breathe.
When it noted that he was still alive and kicking, if barely, the bat started its descent toward him. Ichigo would have died had it not been for a bullet digging its way into the Bat's chest.
The orange haired young man only managed to turn his eyes sideways to see Karin with one of her guns smoking from the last shot. The gun was the only thing pointed at the Bat as Karin's eyes were looking somewhere else.
It pained her seeing her brother in this state, injured, helpless…
The bat upon being shot flew away into the mist. Karin seized the opportunity and ran to Ichigo. It appears that he fell from the Rollercoaster into a Jumping Castle, barely saving his life. She pulled a bottle of 'Healthy Drink' and helped him drink it. Slowly but surely, the gash on his shoulder mended itself while the mind numbing pain that coursed through his body started disappearing.
"Karin…" Ichigo could not end as Karin slapped him in the face.
"You idiot…" Karin whispered to him "Don't do this again…"
Realization struck Ichigo here "I-I'm sorry… Karin"
"We are supposed to save Yuzu… Together, Ichigo" Karin told him harshly "Don't die on me like that, Ichigo!"
Ichigo looked at his sister in awe. She was right, they had something to do. To save Yuzu, that was what they strived for.
He felt like an idiot for ever thinking that.
Slowly he got up and gripped his katana.
When did he start fearing again? Was it when Zangetsu left him? Was it when he stopped perceiving the Spiritual World? Or was it when he realized he had no power to protect those he cared for?
Did it even matter to him in the first place? He was the one who tried to fight a Hollow with a baseball bat.
"You're weak, Kurosaki"
"I may be…" Ichigo replies to no one, in Karin's point of view "But I'm not alone"
With that said he ran toward the Bat and fearlessly he swung at it in wide slashes hoping to keep it out of balance. The Bat batted away Ichigo's sword and blocked every strike, but Ichigo did not relent at all. He kept swinging, not giving up.
Disregarding his fears…
Karin seeing her brother up and fighting once again, she smiled and charged in with her guns blazing, each shot cutting through the Bat monster and dodging Ichigo in each of his motions.
It did not take long for Ichigo to reach a stalemate with the Bat creature. Ichigo pushed the blade against the Bat's claws that pushed just as strong, but not as strong as it used to. Karin's bullets did their job and damaged the creature severely.
"You're going down!" Ichigo shouts as he pushes the bat as much as he can, surpassing his own limits. The Bat was pushed away and lost its balance before recovering in the air.
The Bat screeched loudly and charged forward to deal an all or nothing hit on Ichigo.
*BANG*
It did not go far as its head was blown off, courtesy of Cheryl who stood to the side, her shotgun held in one extended hand smoking from its recent use.
"I've always hated bats…" Cheryl mutters as she pulls the shotgun down.
Ichigo breathes heavily as he tries to recover from the frenzied way he just fought. His hunched form is hugged by Karin before she plops down in the ground, dead tired.
"Good work team" Karin says sarcastically, giving a whoop with her hand from her position in the ground.
Between breathes Ichigo manages a laugh that doesn't last long as he is still trying to recover.
Cheryl observes their interaction with curiosity as she hasn't seen much of human interaction in the last few years. Seeing that this beast was finally defeated, the prospect of going to the real world was there once again.
It seemed so long since she's been there, in this nightmare… since she killed him…
Silently she followed the siblings until they arrived to the amphitheatre where they appeared the first time. There in the ground, for everyone to see sat the medallion that depicted a Bat, the proof of defeating a creature of that type and apparently part of the set this Norman wants for his own purpose.
"So you now have this Medallions of Jungfrau, so what are you going to do?" Cheryl asks the siblings.
"First we see how much time we have left, second we find this Norman bastard and give him those medallions" Ichigo lists off "Then we get the fucking out of here"
Cheryl smirked in mirth "I wish it was so simple… for both of your sakes"
Karin, not liking what was just implied, decided to change the subject "What about you?"
Cheryl looks at the dark sky and sighs "I have been fighting for the last three years… after so much time here I think I would like to see the sights and actually appreciate the little bit of freedom I now have"
Ichigo nodded in agreement. This experience has only taught him to appreciate what he has rather than what he doesn't. His Shinigami powers may come back at one point, but seeing the worry he caused his sister with his actions and the fear of losing Yuzu once again is more important.
He's been looking into his own past for too long, two years to be exact and that could not happen anymore.
With new resolve about life, Ichigo, Karin and Cheryl picked up the medallion at the same time and promptly vanished from the nightmare…
-SHE-
"Sir they have come back"
Norman looks up at his servant from his seated position and nods for the man to continue.
"They reappeared in the park alongside that woman" The cultist says in a hiss "Shall we pursue them?"
Norman smirks at this "Let them be. They will come by themselves to us"
The Cultist nods and leaves the area leaving Norman to stare as several cultists prepared the stage for the show. A circle was drawn in the middle of the room with three circles inside it.
"Paradise is close… Michael you will see your work coming to an end"
-SHE-
02:23:54Hs
-BREAK-
So another chapter down for the count! Hey don't throw that! It's pointy! Welp people may be angry at me for not updating but work and studying at the same time will be the death of me.
Bat… Ulquiorra… pretty obvious by now…
Ichigo's fears play a big part here in this fight and I tried to write this the best I could considering I'm really short on time, I've been writing this since February.
Norman being a creep as always and Cheryl not really adapted to customs after three years in a Nightmare.
Ichigo finally lets his Shinigami side stay in the past!
Finally comes the reviews!
-Enjali-
Enjali: Ulquiorra can be a bit of a nightmare, but I'd say Mayuri would be my nightmare. I hate clowns.
ME: Too true my friend. Not seeing the new IT. Probably cry in the cinema…
-Darkblur2005-
Darkblur2005; I'm getting the impression that there will be an Aizen fear. Seriously enjoying this fic, and I haven't even played any Silent Hill Games, only read summaries of the first three on the wiki
ME: Thanks for the support! I'm glad you like this story but I suggest you that you play at least one of the games. I started with Origins actually and went from there.
-SSJR Goku Black-
SSJR Goku Black: That she is!
-o-
That's all for reviews
Can't promise when next chapter will come out, so sorry, stay tuned!
NEXT CHAPTER: THE ORPHAN